Batman: The Piano Man
by iammemyself
Summary: Synopsis: Based on an AU where the Riddler is a spy who gathers his information by bartending. He stays nowhere for too long and holds on to no one, but all of that changes the night he meets the piano man...


Indiana

Inspired by mortalorder

Synopsis: Based on an AU where the Riddler is a spy who gathers his information by bartending. He stays nowhere for too long and holds on to no one, but all of that changes the night he meets the piano man...

Characters: Riddler, Scarecrow [Scriddler]

Background for Bartender Riddler

Eddie was working a lounge this time. It'd been a bit of a downer of a night: the monetary tips'd been bad, the only phone number he'd gotten was from some dude so drunk he couldn't pronounce his own name, he was oh for three on information… it was one of those days where Eddie seriously considered finding a new line of work. He kept along in the one he had because he was good at it and it amused him, but if it was failing to be amusing, well… maybe it was time to move on.

Because he was the bartender, he also had to close up that end of the lounge: lock up the alcohol, wipe down the counters, small maintenance things. He of course knew there had been some guy playing the piano in the corner at some point, but he'd been under the impression someone had turned on the radio and he'd gone home a while back. That's where Eddie wanted to be just then after tonight, at home - or what passed for home for a man who couldn't stay in one place for too long - but there was many a glass to be deposited in the dishwasher and he still had to count his till. He didn't particularly like the music he was hearing, but it was at least distracting enough that he wasn't preoccupied enough with how annoyed he was that he became even _more_ annoyed.

He'd been counting his till for a minute or so when he realised it wasn't the radio he was hearing. The piano player was still there. But for the first time since Eddie had started working there, he was singing. He wasn't particularly good at it; he didn't seem to have any range and his voice was far too husky, but there was feeling there, and Eddie appreciated that. People who work in the service industry know all too well that it sucks the very life out of you. Not Eddie, of course, because he was there by choice and could leave whenever he wanted. But much of the serving staff and a few in the BOH who'd seen enough outrageous customer demands that they literally no longer had the ability to care.

Eddie was naturally very fast at counting out his till and was done a minute or two later, and when he'd come back from locking the drawer in the office the man in the corner was still singing. Eddie was a little annoyed because he wanted to leave, but he uncharacteristically had no desire to kick the guy out - something he usually took extreme pleasure in. He stood behind him and let him finish, then said, "You know we're closed, eh?"

He was surprised when the man jumped and turned around, staring at Eddie as though he were a ghost. He wasn't any more to look at than he was to listen to, but he gave off the impression he'd lost some part of himself a long time ago and it was oddly endearing. The man apologised in a whisper and mumbled something about leaving and not realising they'd closed, but Eddie was not a fan of short conversations and asked why he never sang when the bar was open. It wasn't as though the habitual drunkards there would know the difference between a good singer and an… okay one.

The man only shrugged and left Eddie to drum his fingers against the side of the piano. There were very few people in the world that Eddie had not gotten to talk, and he was now quite determined to stop this man from being one of them.

It took him several weeks of extremely brief exchanges, but Eddie eventually learned that the man was a former professor of psychology at one of the universities, let go for some incident he refused to relate. Desperate to continue the research he had begun there - something he also withheld, to Eddie's frustration - but unable to get a job in his field for a while due to the incident, he had turned to playing the piano wherever he could find a place to do so. He barely made enough to live off, let alone to do his research with, but he was determined to make it work until he had the means to do better.

Eddie only grew more intrigued with Jonathan, as he eventually introduced himself, as time went on, to the point where he was more interested in chatting with him at the end of the night than he was with doing what he was there to do. Jonathan was nearly always so guarded that real conversations never really got off the ground, but Eddie discovered that if he had just the right statement about something psychology-related, particularly on the topic of fear for some reason, Jonathan would enthusiastically talk for hours on end. Jonathan was smart, Eddie came to realise; no, he didn't know the reason he'd been fired from the university, but the man's potential was very clearly being wasted. He would never be able to engage in any meaningful experiments with the pittance he was making every night, which was not very much even when the lounge's drunken patrons didn't take his tips to cover their tabs with. It was extremely clear from his appearance that he took the bare minimum amount of care with himself, putting everything he could into his project, whatever it was; Eddie admired that kind of devotion. It was far too rare, in his opinion. So Eddie made the decision to call in a favour or two and secretly procured him a position in a lab run by some careless billionaire who probably wouldn't notice if someone funnelled research money into some private project. It took a few days but Jonathan eventually told him he was leaving at the end of the week. When the end of the week came Eddie smiled and shook his hand and wished him luck. Jonathan didn't let go of his hand for some reason, and wouldn't until Eddie met his eye; then he said, "You're the only one who's ever told me that."

To which Eddie answered, "To be fair, you're not very chatty."

The quip went over Jonathan's head as they so often did, as he continued, "You're also the only one who didn't regard me as nothing more than a piece of furniture. I'll remember you."

And Eddie laughed and remarked that most people did remember him, but Jonathan just gave him that serious stare before disappearing.

Eddie as a rule did not get overly attached to anything - it was simply foolish in a life such as his - but he was glad nonetheless when he acquired the information he was after about three weeks later. He didn't _miss_ Jonathan or anything, but the new piano guy just didn't cut it. Eddie would give him free drinks against the direction of the lounge owner simply to make him unable to play anymore.

He was getting dressed for work, which he'd decided was to be his last day as he expected his client to approve his information the next morning, when he heard a knock on the door of his apartment. _That_ was potentially bad news - had he been caught this time? - but it became apparent that bringing his handgun to the door with him was unnecessary. All that was on the other side was a box one might put some small article of jewelry in, and it held what appeared to be a gas mask and a piece of paper that read, 'Bring this with you tonight. You'll know when to use it.'

He stared at the two articles for a few minutes, trying to figure out if he was being pranked or if this was completely serious; in the end he shrugged and threw the thing into his work bag. It couldn't hurt, could it? No one had to _know_ he was carrying around a gas mask some unknown stranger had left outside his door. When he got to work he put the bag under the counter as usual and forgot about it. That was, until the screaming started.

It was Saturday, some superstar singer Eddie had never heard of had been booked as the entertainment, and the owner kept hovering over him and saying he needed to help Eddie with the orders when all Eddie really needed was to take him by the face and flip him right over the bar and out of his way. He'd done it before and, since it was his last day, he was very tempted. On the other hand there was a very attractive brunette right in front of him and there was a good chance he'd have her number by the end of the night if he reeled her in just so, and that was going to be a hell of a lot more satisfying than dumping his annoying boss on top of her. And he'd been working on that when people started to panic unexplainably, knocking over tables and chairs and throwing all manner of things at whoever was anywhere near them. Eddie stepped back from the bar then, bewildered but also a little concerned that he was starting to feel anxious himself - which was a red flag because Eddie was _never_ anxious. It seemed now was the when the note had mentioned… and as stupid as he felt holding the damn thing over his face, he was glad as hell to have brought it as he watched everyone in the lounge completely degrade into a mass of terrified, screaming helplessness. Eddie looked around the room as his own breath warmed his face, and as his eyes came to rest on the corner where the diva had been standing, he saw the oddest thing: a hooded man vaguely resembling a scarecrow standing next to the piano. The most confusing part was that he was unaffected by all of this; he didn't seem to have a mask as Eddie did. The man looked at him then and nodded minutely; the light was sparse but enough for Eddie to make out his face. "Jonathan?" Eddie said in disbelief, brow creasing and voice muffled behind the mask.

It was the only time Eddie had ever seen him smile.

Eddie later learned that Jonathan's project had been that of creating a chemical that would induce crippling fear in anyone who inhaled it, and that he had been let go from the university for using his unwilling students as test subjects for his experiments. All of which would have been useful knowledge _before_ Eddie had decided to give him a shove in the direction of being able to achieve something, but even after quite a lot of consideration Eddie could not say for certain that he would have acted differently if he _had_ known. He didn't get the impression that Jonathan was a bad person, exactly; a confused one, maybe. A frustrated one, probably. A brilliant one, absolutely. Eddie hadn't exactly _endorsed_ the man, merely helped him out a little, and so he felt no need to take responsibility for Jonathan's short-lived spree of terror nor his subsequent capture and internment in Arkham Asylum. And he doesn't _miss_ him or anything - of course not - but when he's… bored he will make the trip up to the Asylum and sit across from him and take note of the new lines in Jonathan's face through the smudged glass rent with scratches. Usually Eddie will do all of the talking and Jonathan will not look at him as he tangles his fingers together as they used to do, but sometimes Eddie will say one thing that will bring life back into Jonathan and he will talk until the guards take him away. The lounge they once worked at is no longer in operation, abandoned shortly after the incident by the owner and largely regarded as cursed. Every year Eddie will make sure the strings are still in tune and Jonathan will appear in the dark without fail and sit at the deteriorating piano, and he will play. And in the echo of his husky voice against the crumbling walls and the broken chairs and the glittering shards of shattered glasses left forgotten in sticky, mouldering pools on the floor, they both hear not the din from that night, but the conversations they used to have late into the morning. They're not sure what they are - too separate to be friends, too close to be strangers - but they _do_ know that it was built in these twilight hours in this room, and that they will continue to build it whether it be here or at the Asylum or in the shared glance of two passers-by.

Eddie does not expect to be at ground zero again, but he still carries the mask anyway. He's not sure why, but he finds himself tucking it into every bag he carries without a second thought. Several years later, during one of their annual meetings, he tells Jonathan so, and Jonathan to his surprise comes to life then, asking to see. He allows it and Jonathan takes the crude and by now fairly battered mask in his hands, and he laughs. It's as old and tired and reluctant as everything else about him is, but it is one of the most genuine things Eddie has ever heard.

"You are something, Eddie," he says, "holding onto this all these years." And though he teases Eddie for the first time he is running one thin finger down the side of it with something approaching tenderness. "I don't suppose it's indicative of something _else_ you're trying to hold onto?"

"I don't hold onto anything," Eddie says, nonplussed. "I can't. You know that."

"I see," Jonathan answers, but that rare smile is on his lips and Eddie realises Jonathan's doctorate probably gives him insight Eddie hadn't anticipated. Jonathan taps the bench to his left and tells him to sit. Eddie obliges him, though he's not sure why, and Jonathan pokes at the arm nearest. "Play with me," he says.

Eddie folds his arms, reluctant to admit he doesn't know how, but… he doesn't know how. Jonathan… Jonathan is still smiling.

"I'll show you," he says. And because he has nothing better to do, Eddie lets him. He is of course a quick study, though unfortunately slow at first, and he has to admit… it is nice. Maybe he _can_ hold onto this. Just this. This moment, this meeting, this… person. It's dangerous, for a life in perpetual motion to be anchored by anything, but… if Eddie didn't like a bit of danger, he wouldn't have the life he did, would he?

The night's long spell is broken when Jonathan raises one of his long hands to cover a yawn, and Eddie looks at him and notices how the shadows under his eyes have darkened. How he's going to get back into the Asylum now, Eddie doesn't know. Before he really knows what he's saying he has offered to hide him for a day or so, since he stayed here far longer than he'd meant and was surely noted as missing by now, and Jonathan is looking at him with the oddest expression. Some mix of suspicion and disbelief and… gratitude. But it makes Eddie uncomfortable, gives him the feeling that Jonathan has never held that expression before. He isn't quite sure he has earned that privilege. But it so happens that Eddie ends up harbouring an escaped, tenuously sane so-called supercriminal in his apartment, that Eddie ends up regarding the softness that has come over Jonathan's severe features in sleep, that Eddie ends up admitting to himself that yes, he wants to hold onto something, and that something is _this_. What is it? He doesn't know. But if he holds onto it he's bound to find out.

When Eddie wakes up late that afternoon with a pain in his neck and cold feet crossed over each other against the floor, in the chair he remembers sitting down on and not much else, Jonathan is gone. Eddie's bed looks untouched. It's as though he was never there at all. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe what he remembers is just a dream he had. A dream he wishes were reality.

It is painful somehow, some way, just to _imagine_ that's true.

But after Eddie has stood and rubbed the heat from his neck he sees the box on the table; for a moment there's a cold flicker of panic in his stomach. It's the same box Jonathan left for him years ago. A box he got rid of not long after he received it.

When he opens it, relief replaces the apprehension; it's a different box. With a different mask and a different message: 'For next time.'

He laughs, not because it's all that funny, but because now he knows there's going to be one. That knowledge is something he definitely wants to hang onto.

And he can't wait.


End file.
